break it down
by chidorinnn
Summary: Chihaya Mifune agrees to take in a girl with whom she was fated to cross paths. Some months later, Akari Kurusu arrives in Tokyo on a train that runs off the tracks when its operator suffers a mental shutdown. Then it all goes downhill from there. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**This AU hinges on a few points of canon divergence:**

 **1) the protagonist is a girl**

 **2) Chihaya Mifune is the protagonist's guardian instead of Sojiro Sakura**

 **3) Lavenza exists as her own entity and not as Caroline and Justine**

 **4) the Phantom Thieves are comprised of a different, smaller group of people**

 **cross-posted from Ao3**

* * *

Akari Kurusu wakes to the tinny sound of her phone alarm two hours after she leaves from Miyagi Prefecture — an irritating pop tune from an old Muses concert from one of the group's overly commercialized reunions. It's just annoying enough to be impossible to ignore, and her phone is bright and loud enough that other passengers — nearly double the number from when she'd first left — are starting to stare. She rubs her eye sleepily and apologizes to the passenger next to her for leaning on them too much, her voice still thick with sleep. Everything seems hazy and blurred at the edges of her vision. The world feels slightly off-kilter.

The girl sitting next to her, small and demure with her deep blue dress and her gloved hands clasped together in her lap, turns her head delicately to look up at her with piercing golden eyes. Her mouth moves with words that Akari can't hear.

Then there's a deafening _screech_ as the train suddenly lurches violently to one side. Akari's head snaps forward as passengers cry out in alarm, but the girl calmly grabs Akari's sleeve and steadies her as gravity shifts and everything falls.

She doesn't pass out — it couldn't be that easy. Nothing hurts and she can still move just as well as she could before, but her heart won't stop hammering in her chest and it's hard to breathe past short, panicked gasps. When looking back on the incident, she wouldn't be able to remember much of what followed: not the paramedics shining a light in her eyes and patting her on the cheek a few times, not the ride in the ambulance to the hospital when she fails to respond to their questions. She remembers the nurses whispering of patients that had been lost, of other passengers that had been hurt too badly to ever hope to return to their normal lives. She remembers the doctors telling her that it had been a miracle that she escaped such an awful accident with almost no injuries to speak of.

Still, Akari is three hours late to her meeting with her new guardian. A woman sits at the side of the road in Shinjuku, with long hair and a black band fitting around her head like some sort of halo, her brow furrowing and recognition plain in her eyes as Akari sits, uncomfortably, in front of her at her table. "The Tower showed up in today's reading," she says. "Well, Akari Kurusu-san… tell me about this Tower."

* * *

One of Chihaya Mifune's regulars is a man in his forties named Kawamoto. As far as clients go, he's one of the more normal ones — he comes when he needs to make an important decision and too many people are pulling him in too many different directions. He's one of the better regulars because he doesn't stare at her for too long, and he always pays the full amount when he doesn't like what she has to say.

He comes to her in February and sits down at her table with a long, weary sigh. "How are you doing today, Kawamoto-san?" Chihaya asks him politely, though she already has a vague idea of what his answer will be.

Kawamoto stumbles through a few incredibly awkward minutes of meaningless pleasantries before cutting to the heart of the matter. "It's my friend, you see," he says. "His daughter has just about ruined his life."

Chihaya begins shuffling through her cards, and hopes Kawamoto will be quick. "Oh?"

"She was arrested sometime ago," Kawamoto explains. "They say she propositioned someone — a public figure, no less! — and later assaulted him. I just… I can't imagine how someone like him could have someone so _horrible_ for a daughter!"

Chihaya smiles, a mask sliding seamlessly into place, as she begins laying out cards on the table. "And this concerns you how, Kawamoto-san?" she prompts him.

"Well…" he mumbles, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket to dab at sweat on his brow. "She was expelled from her high school. No other school near her hometown would let her transfer — with good reason, I'm sure — but recently a school _here_ accepted her. I'm worried my friend will ask me to… to…"

 _To be a good friend to someone who is clearly going through a hard time?_ Chihaya wants to ask him. "Let's consult the tarot to see if your paths will cross," she says instead, and flips over three cards before him.

The Hierophant, upright.  
The Hermit, reversed.  
The Temperance, upright.

"I don't think you need to worry," Chihaya tells him. "Whatever that girl's fate may be here, it has very little to do with you."

Immediately, the tension that hikes his shoulders upward leaves him at once. When his expression softens, Chihaya knows that this is the answer he wants to hear. "Thank you, Maiden," he says. "Thank you so much." Kawamoto pays her a bonus to her standard fare — he always does, when she guides him to the answers he wants to hear.

Logically, Chihaya knows that it's unprofessional of her, to dwell so much on a girl whose name and face she doesn't know. Logically, she knows that the chances of meeting this girl are slim: there are already a lot of people in Tokyo, and the number of new people that come to the city climbs higher every day.

And yet — and yet, it's unfair to that girl, that Chihaya doesn't know the full story. It's unfair that the only part of it she knows is from a man so panicked at the prospect of crossing paths with this girl that he felt the need to seek a fortuneteller's services. She wonders, insanely, how many people have called that girl a _monster_ lately — whether it's to her face or behind her back is irrelevant.

Logically, Chihaya knows that what she is even thinking is irrational — and yet, she draws three cards for herself and flips them over one by one. It might not be that man's fate to cross paths with that girl, but maybe it's hers — maybe fate has guided her to this moment, and it's why she's trying this at all.

The Wheel of Fortune, reversed.

The Empress, upright.

The World, upright.

* * *

Chihaya lives in a traditional Japanese house that would look right at home in a sleepy town in the countryside, but looks out of place in the hustle and bustle of modern Tokyo. It's one story high and it has two bedrooms, one of which is filled with Akari's moving boxes. The walls are a faded beige that cracks at the edges, and the table takes up too much space in the small living room.

(The place belonged to one of Chihaya's regulars, an old man named Saito who passed away without fanfare in a hospital, surrounded by machines and unfamiliar doctors and nurses. Like clockwork, he would come to her table every Wednesday after his office job and pay the full amount, even though he didn't always ask for her services. Sometimes, he'd buy Holy Stones from her and bring back bentos of food he'd made for her, salted to perfection. Most of the time, he just liked to talk — about everything, about nothing in particular, about matters that had nothing to do with fortune telling, about Chihaya's favorite foods and favorite places from her hometown in the countryside. He said she looked like his daughter, Chitose, who refused to speak to him after he made a few too many mistakes some decades ago.

Then, one Wednesday, he didn't show up at her table. The World, reversed, showed up in her reading. By the time she finally tracked down the hospital where he stayed — lied to the nurses that she was his daughter because who else would come to see him? — all he could do was clasp her hands in both of his, call her "Chitose," and thank her for forgiving him.

Chihaya didn't tell him that there was nothing to forgive — not for her, who was not his daughter — but it was his fate to never know this. In his will, written when he was more lucid and not as close to death, he left almost everything to Chitose but his house to Chihaya.)

Akari doesn't tell her about the accident. It sounds like an excuse, no matter how she tries to phrase it in her head, and she keeps silent as Chihaya goes about explaining what living with her will entail — that Akari will need to be home by a certain time every day, that she will need to find a part-time job to occupy herself while Chihaya works. She's only half paying attention, as the announcer on TV, slightly muted because Chihaya has deliberately kept the volume low, speaks of mental shutdowns and horrible train accidents that should not be possible in this day and age.

Chihaya turns to the TV as Akari fidgets uncomfortably, and says: "Oh. There's the Tower."

"Um." Akari startles at the sound of her own voice, curling in on herself in a way that makes her look smaller, more easily breakable. "Th-They made me go to the hospital," she says. "We all had to. I'm not hurt, s-so…"

Chihaya smiles, tilting her head slightly to the side. "That's fine!" she says. "The Tower is a card that signifies great upheaval in your life. Your moving here was by no means sudden, so it didn't make sense that the Tower would reflect _that_. I knew it had to be something else." Chihaya bows her head, and touches the pendant hanging around her neck. "It was fate, you see. There's nothing you could have done to avoid it."

Well… no, that's not entirely true, Akari surmises. There were a lot of things she could have done differently: she could have taken a later train, she could have gotten off a station or two early and walked the rest of the way, she could have come a day prior or a day later, she could have forgone coming to Tokyo altogether and taken up a job somewhere close to her hometown instead of transferring high schools.

(She could have just continued walking, when she heard that woman scream that night. She could have called the police immediately instead of waiting for the man to come to his senses or for the woman to successfully squirm out of his grasp. She could have just stayed home that night, or stayed back at cram school a little later, to avoid this incident altogether. She could have taken those pills from the back of her mother's medicine cabinet and ended things after she was released from the detention center, so that she wouldn't have had to deal with any of this.)

Chihaya gestures towards the croquettes on Akari's plate with her chopsticks. "Eat," she says, not quite ordering her to do so but somewhat reprimanding all the same.

Akari chokes down about a quarter of her first meal in Tokyo, and the croquettes that Chihaya worked so hard to make sit in her stomach, nauseatingly, like a heavy weight.

* * *

(Some months before she moves to Tokyo, instead of heading straight home after cram school like she usually does, Akari stops at the convenience store with some friends for ice cream. There's only one vanilla left, and she has to beat one of her friends, a girl named Mayu who's been in the same class as her on and off throughout the years, at jan-ken-pon to win it. She feels only a little bad when Mayu sticks her tongue out at her as she goes for strawberry.

So, when Akari parts ways with them a few blocks away from her house, her thoughts are occupied with formulating a believable excuse to her mother for coming home so late. Sakurada-san from the house with the red roof has regular shouting matches with his son and can be rather loud when scolding him about test scores and university prospects, so Akari doesn't think too much of it when she hears yelling from that house's general direction. It isn't until she gets closer — too close to just walk by quietly and make it look like she hadn't seen or heard anything — that it occurs to her that the voice she hears yelling isn't Sakurada-san.

"Just get in the car, damn it!" an unfamiliar man in a black suit shouts. His hands are large, veins prominent as he lunges for a woman that looks so much smaller than him. The woman, terrified, brings her hands up to shield her face.

Akari stops because— because it is the right thing to do, because that woman needs help and Akari is _right there_ , so she should be able to do something. "Are you okay?" she asks the woman, even though she knows it's a stupid question. Of course the woman is not okay.

It's enough to divert the man's attention away from her, though. The man turns, slowly, and looms over Akari. He's so very _big_.

He's yelling at her, now, but the words don't register; what does is his hands on her shoulders, so very large and squeezing so tightly that it feels like she'll shatter into a million pieces if he presses any harder. She doesn't _mean_ to hurt him — but he's hurting her, and it's all she can do to push him away. He stumbles back and goes down, and it's only then that Akari smells the alcohol.

There's— there's not that much blood, really, but it looks bad. There are too many lights — police car lights, flashlights, street lamps, lights from the houses on the street flickering on to see what the commotion is about — and all of them seem to focus on Akari as the man covers his face, his shoulders trembling with rage as blood drips slowly from a cut on his forehead.

"Damn bitch… I'll sue!")

* * *

After Akari introduces herself to the principal of her new school, Chihaya takes her out for crepes. There's nothing to celebrate, but she doesn't refuse when Chihaya insists on paying, and orders herself a strawberry crepe. Chihaya orders herself a vanilla one, and then they head to a nearby park.

Chihaya pulls out her tarot deck and begins shuffling it while Akari chokes down her crepe, trying to aggressively not think about how the principal had stared down his nose at her and how her homeroom teacher looked at her like she was an inconvenience — and how the smell of Chihaya's crepe is making her feel nauseous. Logically speaking, this is something she should have expected: the open disdain, the people who claimed to be on her side treating her like a criminal when she wasn't just another checkbox for them to prove how _progressive_ they were by associating with her. She should have expected it, but it wouldn't have made it any easier.

(She couldn't even get on the goddamned train. All she could do was stand at the platform, frozen in place as the doors slid open and precious time ticked away. It was Chihaya who had to drag her in and force her to sit down — the way she'd grabbed her arm to steady her was the same way that the girl from the train had, earlier — the one in the blue dress. Maybe, Akari wouldn't have looked like such a blithering idiot in front of her principal and homeroom teacher if she'd at least planned what to say beforehand — but no, all she could do on that goddamned train was count slowly as she measured her breaths, because the last thing she needed was Chihaya growing irritated with her for not being able to do even that much for herself.)

Chihaya holds the deck out to her expectantly. "Lesson number one," she says, "single card readings. Draw one, please."

Hesitantly, Akari rests her hand on top of the deck. They really are very nice cards — deep blue with an intricate golden design, smooth under her fingers. The topmost card slides off easily, its edges perfectly in shape and not at all fuzzy from overuse. On the other side is what appears to be a goblet of some sort with shimmering silver liquid bubbling at the top — upside down?

"No, don't do that!" Chihaya snaps when Akari tries to turn it right-side up. "Every card has a meaning, both upright and reversed. Let's see…" Her fingers are cold as they brush against Akari's to retrieve the card, and she smiles sadly. "The Ace of Cups reversed… that makes sense. You've made a lot of changes lately, haven't you?" Akari wants to laugh at the obvious understatement, but it doesn't look like Chihaya will find it funny at all. "What this card suggests is that you're exhausted. Emotionally. All these changes in your life have made it difficult for you to maintain that balance you need to deal with stress."

That's… right, actually. It's not something she's ever been able to put into words, but it _fits_. Akari nods, and curls into herself to make herself look as small as possible.

Chihaya slips the card back into the deck before placing the entire stack back into her satchel. "Tell me, Akari-san… what were you thinking, that night?"

"What?" Akari says eloquently. It takes a moment for her to get it, but there's really only one night of which Chihaya would care to know the details. Looking back on it, she can't remember that man's face — but she can remember his eyes, shining amber through the hand that covered his face as he glared at her — his voice coming to her immediately as if she'd heard it moments instead of months ago.

 _Damn bitch… I'll sue!_

"That woman needed help…" she says finally. It doesn't feel right, because she should probably be saying _more_ — but what else is there to say? There was someone who needed help, and she volunteered to be that person. That's all there was to it, and yet—

"I see," Chihaya says calmly, serenely. "Did you ever think that, maybe, it was that woman's fate to be in that position?"

"But—"

"A powerless woman and a man with too much power at his disposal… it was that woman's fate to be used by a man like that, and it is that man's fate to continue to use people to such an extent. To interfere in that is to unnecessarily put yourself at risk."

There's an unspoken statement in there — that, maybe, it was Akari's fate to be used by that man too. It makes the crepe she's eating suddenly taste like ash. "But she was…"

Chihaya gets up to throw her now empty plate away, and then sits back down before Akari. "I'm going to tell you something I don't need the cards to confirm," she says. "If you want things to go back to normal… if you want this year to go well, then you should seriously reconsider the way you approach these things that have already been preordained."

It's… a little hard to believe, to be honest, but Akari knows better than to tell her that to her face. Chihaya doesn't say anything more on the subject, but maybe she's silent because she knows what Akari is thinking — and she already knows so much, without Akari having to tell her. Akari chokes down the rest of her crepe and tries to look less nauseous than she feels, before they leave. Chihaya has to hold her arm again before she can bring herself to get on the train.

* * *

On the first day of the new school term, Akari has to wait a few minutes after getting off the train for her heart to stop pounding and the staticky white noise that no one but her seems to hear to fade. Chihaya doesn't accompany her, because what high school student needs the adults in their life to hold their hand when they're too scared to do something that comes so easily to everyone else?

It's raining. She didn't notice it, before, and she doesn't remember hearing about it on the news that morning — but she doesn't remember hearing much of anything at all before leaving Chihaya's house. Logically, she knows she has everything she needs for the first day of school — notebooks, pencils, her student ID — and she's double- and triple-checked the train schedule so there's only a small chance she'll be late getting back again — but it's hard not to think about that horrifying _screech_ as the train lurched to the side two days ago and ran off the tracks. Chihaya told her to draw a card before she left: the Chariot, reversed.

She doesn't remember the way they came yesterday. It's not like she was _trying_ to not pay attention, but thinking on it now, all she can remember is walking for a bit after getting off the train. It doesn't count for much, because she can't remember the direction she walked in.

Someone bumps into her shoulder, and Akari startles for a moment before composing herself. There's another student there, who could have either just arrived now or have been standing there for a while without saying anything — foreign-looking, with blonde hair that doesn't carry the same artificial shine as boxed dye and light blue eyes. "Sorry," the girl says without really looking in Akari's direction, as she pulls her white hood down.

"It's okay," Akari replies quietly, though it feels unnecessary after the words have left her mouth.

A car slows down before them, too deliberately for it to be a coincidence. The front window opens, revealing a man with curly black hair, wearing a red tracksuit. He leans over across the passenger seat and grins at them, his eyes crinkling with laugh lines. "Good morning!" he greets them enthusiastically. "Need a ride?"

The girl with the blonde hair stiffens, her shoulders hiking up ever so slightly as she lifts her head in some semblance of confidence. Her eyes flicker to Akari once, before she forces a smile and running forward towards the car. The man makes room for her as she slides into the passenger seat, but still leans over her to wave at Akari. "Come on in," he says. "Can't be late for our first day, can we?"

Akari swallows and nods, before heading into the backseat and patting down her uniform where she could feel the rain hit it on the way over. The girl with the blonde hair stares at her in the rear view mirror with an unreadable expression as the man's arm slinks behind her headrest as he turns to face Akari. "Kurusu-chan, right? I'm Mr. Kamoshida. Welcome to Shujin!"


	2. Chapter 2

During Haru Okumura's second year of high school, her father's business skyrockets from a moderately popular fast food chain to a Japanese staple that's somehow wormed its way into America, China, South Korea, Canada, and all across Europe. Kunikazu Okumura attends so many business meetings that, while she spends most of her time in his presence, she gets few opportunities to actually speak with him without having to compete for his attention with swarms of greedy socialites, politicians, and businessmen seeking to win his favor. Her family is, as those who have been wealthier than her for far longer often say, "new money" — a fancy term that means that, no matter how high Kunikazu's ambition reaches, he will never attain the same level of prestige unless he works for it. Even then, maybe only his grandchildren will be able to reap the benefits.

September through January is a whirlwind of activity, as her father drags her across Japan from meeting to increasingly stuffy meeting. The braids Haru has worn her entire life are tugged loose and her hair is cut short into a fashionable bob that makes her look about ten years older than she actually is. Her fingernails are filed and perfectly manicured so that they'll be ready for the ring some "old money" man with an interest in her father's image decides to grant her one day.

Her homeroom teacher gives her one long look the day she returns from her four-month absence and says: "I don't care if you're Mr. CEO's little princess. You're not going to make it to your third year if you don't catch up." Two minutes later, she calls Kunikazu on his personal cellphone, his number lifted from the school office's emergency contact records, and tells him calmly, politely, that his daughter will be staying back at school for an extra two hours every day until the end of the school year. Then, once the last bell rings, she sits backwards on the seat in front of her and walks her through every make-up worksheet and mock exam that would be assigned to someone whose father wasn't writing generous cheques to the school.

So, you could say that Haru Okumura owed Sadayo Kawakami a favor or two.

"I won't take up too much of your time," says Kawakami on the first day of Haru's third and final year at Shujin Academy, "but there's a new student transferring in today. I know this is a lot to ask, but can you show her around? It doesn't have to be today. She'll probably take it better coming from a senpai than from someone like me."

"Why me, and not the student council president?" Haru asks, though she already knows the answer: because the principal holds the president in his pocket, and he's watching the transfer student enough as it is. The transfer student being here at all is a political move, even if no one will admit it — transfers are rare in Shujin as it is, even with its sparkling reputation as a prestigious college prep academy.

"Because you're nice," Kawakami says blandly. "She seemed pretty nervous when I met her yesterday… she'd do well with someone like you to help her find her place here."

It's hard to tell how much of it is a compliment, and how much is Kawakami trying to make her own work easier — but Kawakami isn't like that; if she was, then Haru would be redoing her second year now. "I'll do my best, Ms. Kawakami," says Haru.

Kawakami sighs, and slumps back in her chair. The dark circles that seem like a permanent fixture under her eyes seem so much darker today. "Perfect," she says. "You're a lifesaver, Okumura-san."

"It's no trouble at all," Haru says politely, before bidding her former homeroom teacher goodbye and making her way to the third years' floor. As she does, an unfamiliar girl with wavy hair passes by her. Her gaze is fixed on the floor, and she only lifts her head when she stops at Kawakami's desk. Every other teacher in the room falls silent upon her arrival, the air heavy with tension.

* * *

(They let Akari go the next morning, and her mother comes to pick her up from the detention center. She doesn't say a word as she signs the necessary paperwork, or when Akari runs straight for the bathroom when they got home and empties her stomach of everything she's eaten over the past day. She does tell Akari to get ready for school in the same bland, half-distracted voice she'd use on any other morning, and even offers to drive her to school when Akari can barely stay on her feet because her legs are shaking so much.

So Akari goes to school the day after getting arrested, and it should feel normal and expected but it is not. Nobody knows yet — Mayu still greets her at the front gate, wearing her tracksuit and toweling her hair dry after the swimming club's morning practice; the boy in her class who'd borrowed her notes after being absent a week ago returns her notebook with a sheepish smile; the teacher takes one look at her too-pale face, and asks if she wants to go to the school infirmary.

Akari wonders for all of two seconds whether it would be worse to be inevitably pulled out from class, for everyone to see when the other shoe fell, or if it happened in private with only the school nurse watching. Though she does go to the infirmary after all, it makes little difference — everyone still _knows_. Sakurada-san's neighbor in class 1-D tells her senpai in the astronomy club, who tells her younger sister in class 2-C, who tells Mayu's older brother in class 3-B—

—by the time the school no longer wants anything to do with her, Akari no longer wants anything to do with the school. She stays home for the rest of the week; by Saturday, there's a phone call from the school principal telling her not to bother coming back.)

* * *

There were a few things that made school life very easy for Akari to navigate, back at home: 1) she could recognize almost everyone in her grade by name and by face because she'd been in their class at some point during elementary and middle school; 2) she wasn't pretty or charming enough to hold her peers' attention for long, or for her name to be casually dropped in conversation outside her friend group, so there were few opportunities to _really_ humiliate herself (even though she would later take one of those and run with it); and 3) teachers rarely paid her any mind because she was a decent enough student to never have to take a make-up test, but not _so_ good that she was anywhere near the top of the class.

Shujin's students don't really stare at her as Kamoshida guides her to the teachers' lounge. They stare at Kamoshida, and then their gaze inevitably drifts to her for a moment before snapping back to Kamoshida — like they don't really see _her_ , but an extension of the man next to her. Maybe they don't know she's a transfer student at all. Maybe they do know, and wouldn't have cared to look if it weren't for Kamoshida next to her. His hand rests comfortably draped around her shoulders, his arm pressing into her back as he pulls her close to him.

When he drops her off, he leaves with a smile and a small wave. Then the teachers' lounge falls silent as she enters. They're all… staring too much. Some are already whispering to each other, and it feels like it did every time she left the house back at home, when people would see her and know who she was just by looking at her, because they knew what she did — and then they would just turn to the person next to them and _whisper_.

One teacher — tall, with his shirt buttoned up so high that it looks downright uncomfortable — makes his disdain plain as he glowers at her down his nose. Another teacher — darker-skinned, with her hair curling into a bob at her shoulders — touches her chin and narrows her eyes curiously.

Ms. Kawakami, looks even more tired today than she did yesterday, dark circles prominent under her eyes and her face just a little too pale. Her eyes narrow with the same brand of disappointment that she showed her yesterday. "Oh," she says dryly. "You actually showed up."

It… stings more than it should. She should have expected this — she _had_ expected this — and yet Kamoshida had been so _nice_ that it became easy to forget why she's here at all.

"As of now," Kawakami continues without waiting for her to respond, "none of the students should know about your… circumstances. Whether it stays that way or not is up to you. Got it?"

Akari flinches, even though she really shouldn't. It's a veiled threat — it _has_ to be. Nobody knows now, but everyone _could_ know — and when they do, it will be because Akari messed up, because she didn't toe the line enough even when she didn't know where that line was to begin with, because she made somebody upset without meaning to and they retaliated with the one trump card they would always have on her. What would it take for anyone at this school to use that trump card? Would anything be enough to convince them to not use that advantage they have over her?

Kawakami's expression softens, and she tilts her head to the side. "You okay?"

"Huh?" Akari answers eloquently, her voice cracking. It's only then that she realizes that she's too _stiff_ — her shoulders are hiked up too high, her hands are clasped too tightly together, and she's breathing too fast. It takes a few moments for her to right herself, as she carefully measures her breaths, unclasps her hands, and lowers her shoulders. None of it helps.

"Sorry," Kawakami says gently. It's like she's a completely different person now — not as tired, not as disdainful. "I should've phrased that better. What I meant was that none of us here will tell anyone about your record. Not even the student council president knows. If _you_ want to tell someone, then that's up to you. We're not going to punish you for it, but we're not going to force you to tell anyone either. Okay?" Akari nods, and Kawakami gives her a small smile. "Good."

Then they start walking to class 2-D. Akari still has to _try_ to breathe properly, and everything is still uncomfortable, but at least Kawakami doesn't look quite so disappointed anymore — and for what? Akari didn't do anything in the teachers' lounge but panic. And with Kamoshida before, she didn't do anything but accept the ride to school he'd offered.

"You're from Miyagi, right Kurusu-san?" Kawakami asks. "Have you been to the city before?" Akari shakes her head. "Oh, wow. It's probably a lot different from what you're used to, huh?"

"Yeah…" Akari replies quietly. "You didn't have to get on a train to get everywhere."

Kawakami chuckles, and grins back at her. "I'll bet. So how'd you get everywhere, then?"

"I walked, mostly," Akari answers. "Sometimes, if my dad was in town, he'd drop me off at school on his way to work in the mornings. And… my neighbor biked to school, so sometimes she'd let me ride on the back." Airi, with brown hair pulled into a messy bun and a yellow ribbon tied into a bow at the top of her head — always yelling at her for being late, always threatening to leave her behind if she didn't get out of the house _right that very second_ , but never following through with it.

"That's not exactly safe, you know."

"It was fun, though."

Then, Kawakami turns abruptly, and reaches for a doorknob. "Ready?"

Akari places a hand over her chest and takes a deep breath. It's not even that difficult. "Yeah."

* * *

Some of the students in Akari's class sneak their phones into the auditorium during the entrance ceremony. No one dares to whip out their phone when the principal is speaking, but they do once the student council president takes the stage. Some at least try to be subtle, letting their phones rest on their laps as they drag only one finger across it without ever looking down at it; others make no pretense of their disinterest, and hold their phones before them normally to text while very deliberately not looking in the direction of any glaring teachers.

The president introduces herself as Makoto Niijima. Shrill feedback reverberates through the room as she approaches the microphone, and she winces ever so slightly before saying in a voice slightly muffled by the poor audio quality and acoustics, "Hello, and welcome back to our illustrious academy. As I begin my term as your student council president, I'd like to share with you my vision for this year."

"Ugh, this is such bullshit," whispers a girl in the row ahead of Akari. "Oosawa-senpai was supposed to win!"

"Come on," whispers the boy next to her. "Niijima-senpai isn't _that_ bad…"

On the opposite side of the auditorium, a few rows ahead, a slender boy with dark hair pulled back into a half-ponytail turns to the person sitting next to him, a taller boy with curly, reddish hair and a wistful smile on his face, and slowly wraps his arm around him. He rubs his shoulder for a few seconds before pulling him close, and the boy with curly hair rests his head on the dark-haired boy's shoulders.

(Last year, a second year named Hisame Oosawa tried to run against Niijima for student council president. The school staff, for the life of them, could not figure out why. It wasn't like he was involved in any clubs or committees at school. His grades were horrendously average. Niijima was the obvious pick: she served as a first-year representative on the student council for one year, and then as treasurer the next. She was ranked at the top of her class, and the principal had agreed to write her a letter of recommendation for college, handpicking her specifically from the hundreds of students in her entire grade. Niijima was a known quantity, a comfort in her predictability.

—and yet, it was Oosawa whose name frequently filtered into conversation. It was Oosawa who stayed back after school every day to tutor first years not because any teacher had asked it of him, but because some of the first years on the track team would be forced to drop the club if they didn't get their grades up. It was Oosawa who would go beyond that and tell them how Ms. Watanabe played favorites and would always grade certain students' papers higher than others regardless of quality, or how Mr. Yamazaki did a terrible job of explaining math and would give out exams at least a hundred times more difficult than the practice problems he covered in class. It was Oosawa that people would go to if they had to rush to cram school or a part-time job right after school, and needed someone to cover their after-school duties. It was Oosawa who did the bulk of class 2-E's work on their cafe at the school festival, even if the class representative later took all the credit.

He didn't want to run, at first. It wasn't his style, to directly take charge like that — only to watch from the sidelines and help where he could, even if it meant that a bulk of the responsibility would inevitably be passed to him. But to his partner Izumi Arakawa, whom he'd been dating since middle school, it was the most obvious solution to everything — to the track team, that had suddenly been disbanded after years of prestige and honor — to the rest of the students, so stretched thin by too much homework and teachers who cared more for test scores and school rankings than their welfare. There wasn't any real campaign — not really — but he made it known that Oosawa was running, that there was even another option besides what the school faculty had already decided on.

But to the principal, Mr. Kobayakawa, it was a very deliberate attack. There was already a _plan_ — for such a quiet student who had always been so respectful, who was _Arakawa_ to suddenly speak out like this? Who was _Oosawa_ to think he could do this so suddenly when he had no prior student government experience? When the school's plan was always for _Niijima_ and there was no room for anyone else?

It was laughably easy to put an end to Arakawa's efforts — a word to Ms. Usami to maybe watch how lenient she could be with regards to his and Oosawa's exams, a few jabs at the current state of the school's track team and how _powerless_ Arakawa had been to stop its inevitable collapse, a strong warning to class representatives to urge their peers to vote for Niijima instead.

And yet, the revolution of sorts persisted. First years plastered flyers on the school walls urging each other and their senpai to vote for Oosawa. Former track team members and even students on other sports teams rallied in Arakawa's honor. Come election day, it was Oosawa's name that too many students wrote down on their ballots.

—although, technically, Niijima hadn't lost by _that_ much — and at Shujin, the Principal _always_ had the last word.)

"For us to reap the full benefits of our education," Nijiima concludes, "your participation, ideas, and enthusiasm are essential. Thank you."

Everyone claps politely — some of the parents and teachers far more enthusiastically than a lot of the students. "Please," the blonde-haired girl, Ann, scoffs from next to Akari. "It's so obvious she didn't write that herself."

The student council president is still standing on the stage, her hands clasped before her as she smiles hollowly at the parents and sponsors that now swarm before her. She looks so small, amidst the camera flashes, as the principal proudly beams next to her with his hand resting all too proudly on her shoulder.

* * *

The minute the last bell rings, Ann swivels around in her chair and asks, bluntly, "Do you want to get crepes?"

So they go to the same place Akari had gone to with Chihaya the previous day. Ann orders something with so much cream that it makes Akari a little nauseous just looking at it. Ann's friend Shiho, who met them at the school gate, orders matcha. Ann insists on paying — because it is Akari's first day, and because she owes Shiho money.

Akari nibbles on her own chocolate hazelnut crepe, and tries not to feel too guilty. It's… nice, to have an "after school" again. It makes things feel more normal than they have in a long, long time.

(Akari spends the months after her arrest and subsequent expulsion from school playing catchup, studying endlessly to make up for all the classes she misses because she needs to be _ready_ — ready to take an entrance exam for another school at any given moment, and if not that, then ready to apply to one of those less prestigious colleges that will maybe, hopefully accept people who have not completed high school. There's no time to do anything else — or, perhaps more accurately, there's all the time in the world, but nothing else is worth it like this is supposed to be.

She doesn't dare leave the house. To do so would be to risk running into someone that will recognize her and know what she did. Her mother lets her stay home out of necessity, because she needs to go to work and taking Akari with her is simply not an option. Wake up, try to eat, study, try to eat, study, sleep — over and over and over again until the days start to blur together, until there's no longer any time to talk to her mother, or to say more than two words to her father whenever he calls to ask how she's doing.)

She has nothing to talk to them about. When was the last time she watched TV, or listened to anything but the same playlist of old idol songs by artists who have long retired? When was the last time she talked to someone her age, or talked to anyone at all for longer than a few minutes? Chihaya knows and is accommodating — more accommodating than Akari deserves by far — but Ann and Shiho don't _know_.

Ann licks the last of the whipped cream off her fork, and then abruptly stands up. "Split another one with me?"

"You're _still_ hungry?" Shiho asks incredulously.

"Come _on_ , Shiho!"

Shiho's smile fades for a moment — and in that moment, the light seems to fade from her eyes, her shoulders hunching forward ever so slightly. "I'll split with you," Akari says even though she's already pretty full, because the silence is stretching a bit too long and bordering on awkwardness.

Ann gives her a relieved smile. "Thanks."

It's not necessarily awkward when Ann leaves them to stand in line again, but Shiho still sits half-folded in on herself. "Are you okay, Suzui-san?"

"Huh?" Shiho's head snaps upward, and her eyes go wide. "Oh, it's… it's nothing." She smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "How are you liking Shujin? Probably not what you expected, huh?"

 _In so many different ways_ , Akari very deliberately does not say. "Is everyone always so…?"

"Yeah," Shiho answers. "Even the teachers. They're the _worst_. Speaking of which…" She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I heard from Ann that Mr. Kamoshida gave you a ride to school this morning."

"Oh…" Akari says. It's not like she was trying to keep that a _secret_ , but—

(—but earlier in class, before the entrance ceremony, there had been this one girl sitting near the back, whispering to the girl next to her, "Do you think she's really going out with him?"

"Well," the other girl had said, "you know what they say about white trash.")

"He probably seemed really nice… didn't he?" Shiho asks.

"Yeah, he did…" Akari answers uncertainly, and does not tell her that Kamoshida had been the first authoritative figure at this school to see _her_ before he saw her record, who did not immediately remind her that the school was doing her a favor by letting her be there at all.

"Be careful around him, okay?" says Shiho. "He's… well…"

But by then Ann is back, sliding into her chair and laying out a new crepe in front of her, identical to the one she'd eaten before. "I don't mind if you use your own fork," she tells Akari as she immediately begins digging in. "You too, Shiho."

"No, I…" Shiho mumbles. Then she winces as her phone lights up and buzzes. Instead of looking at it, she flips it over so that it lies face-down on the table.

"Shouldn't you get that?" Ann asks.

"It's fine," Shiho replies a bit sharply. Ann nudges the crepe a little bit towards Shiho, who turns away from it and sighs.

* * *

(Last week, when volleyball practice had officially started for the new school year, Kamoshida leered at Shiho for a moment before telling her, bluntly, that she had gained weight since the last time he saw her. "There's no room for fat on this team," he said, and then told her to run laps while the rest of the the team got started on warm-ups. By the time she was done, the rest of her teammates were already on the court, hitting balls back and forth across the net. Kamoshida made her do double the warm-ups they had to do, and then run more laps.

Halfway through her sixth lap, pain suddenly sparked through her leg. She stumbled, before slowing down to a walk as pain tore through her leg. "If you have time to walk, then you can run another lap!" Kamoshida barked at her. Shiho bit down hard on her lower lip, and willed herself to not let the pain show. A few more strides, and she could run again, but it _hurt_.

Kamoshida didn't let her stop running until well after the water break, when practice matches between different strings were starting to wind up. He handed her a slip of paper from his clipboard: in his messy handwriting, a few fruits and vegetables, some meats to be prepared in a very specific way, and foreign-sounding grain she couldn't even pronounce. "If you're serious about volleyball," he said, "then you'll need to commit to it. Don't make me tell you this again."

Shiho crumpled up the paper and shoved it into her bag where she would hopefully never find it again. It wasn't like Kamoshida could watch her _all_ the time — it was pointless to keep looking over her shoulder during lunch breaks, just in case he saw her with that bento box her mother had packed for her, filled with too many different ingredients that weren't on the list he gave her.

She would just have to try harder in practice. Work through the muscle strain, work through the exhaustion — after all, she was serious about volleyball.)

* * *

Shiho doesn't check her phone's notifications until she's safely back at home. There's six missed calls: two from Mishima, three from Ito-senpai, and one from Kamoshida himself. There are at least a dozen text messages asking where she is and why she isn't at practice, none of which she has any motivation to answer.

Shiho sighs, and drags her feet to her bedroom. She has to sidestep a few heaps of clothes on the floor to make it to the bed, but when she does, she collapses immediately into it. Maybe she should change out of her uniform. Maybe she should eat something substantial, because there's no way that crepe she had will hold her until breakfast the next morning. Maybe she should set her alarm, because—

—because if she doesn't, she'll miss morning practice, just like she missed afternoon practice today, and then maybe Kamoshida will pull her out of the starting lineup, but if he does that then maybe practice won't _hurt_ so much — but she really can't keep skipping like this. She loves volleyball. She's _serious_ about volleyball. It's just… hard right now, but it'll get better.

Her eyes sting, and her breath hitches in her throat. She's too tired, so she won't. She won't stay awake long enough to greet her parents when they come back home, so she curls onto her side, facing away from the door. Even when her parents do come — when her mother cracks the door open for a moment and calls out to her father that Shiho is already asleep — she doesn't move.

A part of her wishes that her mom had stayed anyway — maybe come to her bed and checked if she was really asleep instead of just _assuming_ — but since when does Shiho have the _right_? She's the one that tried to avoid her mother, not the other way around. Maybe she should get up right now, make up some excuse about having just woken up — or maybe she should tell the truth, that she was only pretending to be asleep.

But Shiho is too tired, so she won't.

* * *

 **The snippets of Makoto's speech in this chapter are copied word for word from Mitsuru Kirijo's at the beginning of Persona 3. The principal insisted that she use it instead of writing one herself.**


	3. Chapter 3

(Akari's mother does not express her disapproval in the ways that Akari expects — screams of "problem child!" like how the principal had so courteously dubbed her, quiet laments that Akari should be better and yet is not — but she makes her disappointment plain in things that she does not do. She does not bother to correct the so-called well wishers that come by the house in the evenings, when they ask why Akari had felt the need to _assault_ anyone at all. She does not tell off the doctor who suddenly takes an interest in Akari's sexual habits, even though he never once expressed such exaggerated concern before. She does not speak to Akari unless it is to tell her to come downstairs for dinner, or to tell her when new books and letters have arrived for her.

Her father, though — he calls sparingly, only a couple times each month, but when he does, the first thing he asks after is Akari's well-being. He asks if she's been eating and sleeping properly, if she's been getting enough sunlight — and then there's a half-hearted admonishment wedged into the conversation somewhere that it's not _healthy_ for a girl her age to be cooped up indoors for all hours of the day, every day. It's not like she wants to lie to him, but its easier than disappointing him, too. She dodges the topic for as long as she can, in hopes that she won't have to pretend that she's done at least something besides study day in and day out, for some hazy, distant point in the future that she's no longer sure even exists.

What happens to girls like her — or better yet, girls who do actually participate in the things that man had accused her of? They don't get arrested like she did, because they're smart enough to avoid the authorities. They know all the tricks and tells, when to go all in and when to pull out. If they're lucky — or unlucky, depending on how you look at it — they run into an organization built to help girls like them, where they're told that _it's not their fault_ but rather that of the society that made things that way.

But no, this _is_ her fault. Depending on who you ask, either she shouldn't have gotten involved at all, or her parents did a terrible job of raising her. She tries not to think about Mayu or Airi or anyone else at school, because it means thinking about the fact that no one has tried to contact her even once since it happened. She tries not to think about the letters her mother sometimes forgets to throw away — the ones telling her to die, the ones demanding that she leave town lest they retaliate. She tries not to think about what the people who sent those letters could be doing to her mother right now, who is not afraid to leave the house like Akari is. She tries not to think about the endless rejections from high schools both near and far, the way every principal and school staff member says but also doesn't say that there's no place anywhere in the world for a worthless criminal like her.

So she waits, and she studies — and she doesn't hide herself away, not really, but she doesn't dare to hope for anything better than this.)

* * *

Three days into the new school term, a senpai named Haru Okumura pulls up next to Akari in a limousine, just outside the train station, and gives her a ride the rest of the way to school. It isn't quite like that first day with Kamoshida, because Haru's sweetness is genuine in a way that his is not, and there is no Ann to express disapproval at at the entire situation. She doesn't call her "Kurusu-chan," and tells her right away that she's doing this because Kawakami had asked it of her. "She said you might connect better with a senpai than a teacher," she says halfway through a tour of the school.

Akari pauses and considers her words, because Haru doesn't _know_ — she would treat Akari differently if she did. "Thank you so much, Okumura-san," is what she finally settles for. It's not _awkward_ to talk to her like it was with Ann and Shiho. Conversation flows more easily because most of it is prompted by Haru. All Akari has to do is respond, and that alone is so much easier than having to come up with new topics to discuss.

Because the thing is, it's hard to make new friends, even though that's exactly what's expected of her. It's hard because too much time has passed since Akari last spent any substantial amount of time with people her age. She never thought socializing would be a skill that someone could forget, and yet here she is: a transfer student at a new school without a single clue of what to say to the people around her unless they speak to her first. It's fine for the most part, because most of the students pay her little mind. She says "good morning" to Ann every morning and goodbye before leaving at the end of the school day. She smiles and waves every time she passes Shiho in the hallways. And now, there's Haru who — seemingly — does not judge her and is endlessly patient with her.

So when the school's volleyball rally comes around and the students spread out into their own individual friend groups, no longer bound together in class units, Akari doesn't _really_ worry. She stays with Ann as their class trickles into the school gym, waves at Haru on the opposite side of the court, and tries to give Shiho, who's stretching on the court, an encouraging smile.

Ann had said, before, that volleyball rallies tend to be more of an ego boost for Kamoshida, illustrious former Olympic athlete and now coach that he is, than a display of genuine school spirit. Sometimes people in the first string of either the boys' or girls' team face off against people of the second and third strings. Sometimes the girls' team plays against the boys' team. Today, though, it's teachers that play against first string members of both the boys' and girls' teams. There are some people on the students' side, besides Shiho, that Akari can recognize: Yuuki Mishima, her class's representative, for one.

A tall girl with her short hair pushed back with a headband — Kaname-senpai, Ann calls her — serves the ball. A teacher on the other side of the net fumbles with it for a moment, and another dives to correct his mistake and launch the ball into the air. Then Kamoshida spikes the ball in Shiho's direction. It moves too fast — it hits her in the arm so hard that it sends her staggering, and Shiho winces as she rubs the spot on her arm where it had hit her. Kamoshida frowns, though not out of concern. "It's okay," Yuuki tells her, offering her an uneasy smile. "You'll get it next time." Shiho gives him a smile in return that looks more like a grimace.

Kaname serves the ball again, and this time, the teacher that had fumbled with it before sets it properly. Kamoshida spikes the ball again, though this time towards Yuuki. It still moves too fast. There are two sickening _thuds_ : one as the ball slams into Yuuki's face, and the second as he falls back and his head slams into the ground. The ball bounces away as the gym goes silent. Yuuki doesn't get up.

"Mishima-kun!" someone shouts from the bench where Akari and Ann are sitting.

"Are you okay, Mishima?" one of the boys on the students' side of the court shouts.

Kamoshida lifts the net to run across to the other side of the court. In the perfect image of a proper coach, he crouches by Yuuki and gently lifts him off the ground. "Someone get him to the nurse's office!" he shouts.

Kamoshida pulls Yuuki to his feet. It's a slow process that results in Yuuki staggering back, one hand pressed to his head with his face several shades paler than it was just moments ago. The same girl who had called out to him before whispers to the girl sitting next to her. A boy with bleached blonde hair, slouched against the wall, glowers at the scene before him. Ann twirls one of her pigtails and mutters under her breath, "Asshole."

Akari raises her hand, and has to fight against every instinct telling her not to get involved. She's not _really_ getting involved — all she's doing is taking a student to the infirmary. This is something that will help, but also won't be twisted against her later. She glances at the other teachers on the court, and there is no disdain evident in their expressions.

"You'll be all right, Mishima," Kamoshida says as he slaps Yuuki on the back, pushing him towards Akari. "Thanks for doing this, Kurusu-chan."

 _There he goes again with "-chan"_ , Akari tries not to think too hard on, as she swallows and nods. She drapes one of Yuuki's arms around her shoulder and wraps her arm around his waist, as they head for the gym's exit. No one really looks at her on their way out: they look at Yuuki — most with pity.

It's… quiet, outside the gym. It's nice. It makes it easier to breathe, even with Yuuki leaning so heavily into her that it's a struggle to remain completely upright. Nobody's eyes are on her — not even Yuuki's — and it's enough to not _worry_ , even though, soon enough, this moment is going to end.

"Um…" Yuuki mumbles. "K-Kurusu-san…" His face is utterly pale, and he presses his free hand to his mouth as he suddenly swallows hard. "I need to…" He jerks forward suddenly, squeezing his eyes shut. Moments later, Akari finds herself standing outside the boys' bathroom, while aggressively ignoring the horrible sounds coming from inside and praying that no teachers see her and think that she's deliberately ditching a school event.

None of her prayers work. Kawakami chooses that moment to walk down the hall, a mess of folders and papers nearly spilling out of her arms. "Kurusu-san?" she says, frowning. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you at the volleyball rally?"

It's such a simple answer. Technically, a teacher _told_ her to do this — and yet, Akari's throat goes dry, and her mind goes blank as she struggles to find words to explain the situation. Then, Yuuki lets out a horrible retch, and it's terrible of her but she sighs in relief because that's enough of an explanation in and of itself.

Kawakami's expression softens. "Oh," she says. She kicks the bathroom door in lieu of knocking and calls out, "Hey, are you okay in there?"

"Um…" Akari says slowly. She takes a deep breath, and prays that Kawakami will believe her. "Mishima-kun hit his head. I mean, the ball hit his head, and then he hit his head _again_ , and now he's…"

"Oh, I see," Kawakami says. "Sit tight for a minute, okay? I'm going to bring the nurse over." She dumps the stack of papers and folders on the floor next to the bathroom door, and then power-walks down the hall. Akari sighs, and slumps to the floor against the wall, stretching her legs out in front of her.

Then the toilet flushes inside and the sink runs, and Yuuki emerges from the bathroom with one hand wrapped around his stomach, his face frighteningly pale. "I'm okay now, Kurusu-san," he says with obvious difficulty. "We can go back."

Akari frowns. "Sorry, but… weren't you just getting sick a minute ago?"

He gives her a hollow smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "It looks worse than it actually is," he replies.

"But you're—"

"Ah, Mishima-kun," Kawakami says, striding over with an older woman not too far behind her.

The nurse — Ms. Kagari, Haru had told Akari earlier — takes one look at Yuuki before turning to Kawakami and saying, bluntly, "He's fine."

"See?" Yuuki says to Akari.

"Come on, Kagari-san…" Kawakami sighs. "I heard him getting sick not too long ago. He's clearly not doing well."

"Must be anxiety," Kagari says dryly. "If you want to take a nap before afternoon practice, Mishima-kun, you're more than welcome."

"Kurusu-san said he hit his head twice," says Kawakami.

"And you believed her?" Kagari shoots back. "Come now, Kawakami-san."

Akari's breath hitches in her throat, and she backs up to the wall. Yuuki doesn't know — he _can't_ know — but if Kagari says any more, then he'll—

"She has no reason to lie about something like this," Kawakami says firmly, her eyes narrowing. "Are you saying you know my own student better than I do?" She sighs, and then rubs the back of her neck. "You know what? I'll… take care of them. Thank you, Kagari-san." The nurse shrugs, and walks back down the hall without another word. "Thanks for staying with Mishima-kun, Kurusu-san," Kawakami says. "You can go back now. I'll take care of it from here."

Unable to find her voice, Akari nods and leaves for the gym. It isn't until she's halfway there that she realizes that she never told Yuuki that she hopes that he feels better soon, or thanked Kawakami for believing her.

* * *

On Friday, a student jumps from the school rooftop. Not just any student — Shiho Suzui. While the rest of the students clamor out of their seats, while Mr. Ushimaru shouts over everyone to stay sitting and keep calm, Akari stays right where she is, frozen and unable to move.

Underneath the concern and fear, there's the fact that Akari had known her, for however brief a time. She was someone who was kind to Akari, despite not having known her until less than a week ago — a familiar face in the school hallways while the rest of the students were content to ignore their existence.

And now, she's gone — or she could be, so long as she didn't fail at what she set out to do that morning.

(Here is the truth of what happens: Shiho Suzui jumps from the school rooftop, and suddenly all those who wouldn't have given her a second glance, had they seen her in the school hallways, are quick to offer their own theories about what pushed her to that point. Maybe her home life was terrible. Maybe that one senpai on the volleyball team had rejected her. Maybe she failed an exam, even though the first week of school wasn't even over yet. Maybe, one of the more sinister students suggested, she's just doing it for the attention.

Either way, she falls to the ground from three floors up, her legs bent at unnatural angles as she lies there, in pain but conscious. Everyone whips out their phones and takes pictures and videos. Teachers struggle to retain control, as they shout at the students to stay in some semblance of order. Only Ann actually goes to help, pushing past the crowds to her best friend and waiting with her as sirens blare in the distance.

Sometime, before Shiho is carried away on a stretcher, she whispers Kamoshida's name into Ann's ear.)

It's Kamoshida that finds her. Of _course_ it's Kamoshida. It could be minutes later, or hours, but no one has come searching for her yet, and she hasn't seen or heard any students filtering back into the classrooms.

Except Kamoshida is here, his face sculpted into the perfect image of concern. It makes her skin crawl, though it shouldn't — he hasn't done anything to hurt her, so far. "Kurusu-chan?" she hears him say through the white noise. "Are you okay?"

There it is again. Kurusu- _chan_. Not Kurusu- _san_ , like Kawakami calls her, or just _Kurusu_ like the principal does. It doesn't sound right, when he says it. It makes her wish she'd refused his offer for a ride on the first day of school, if it would have meant avoiding this uncomfortable _familiarity_.

Kamoshida takes her hand and pulls her to her feet so quickly that pain briefly tugs at her shoulder. "Why don't you come into my office for a bit?" he suggests, and it should feel normal because it is normal for teachers to do things like this.

It doesn't occur to her until after she's seated comfortably across from him at his desk that this could really just be _normal_. She must not look quite all right after seeing something so horrible, and he might just be trying to offer whatever comfort teachers can. It's normal. If it had been Kawakami instead, she wouldn't have been so worried.

Kamoshida rubs the back of his neck and looks down. "I'm sorry you had to see something like that so soon after you transferred…" he says. It must be even harder on him, Akari concludes, because he ultimately knew Shiho better than she did. Shiho was someone he personally worked with, someone he had seen _grow_. How nice of him, to go out of his way to comfort her when he's already dealing with so much. "You'll say something, won't you Kurusu-chan? If you're ever going through something like that…"

Akari doesn't answer — how can she? The last time she said something, nobody believed her.

Kamoshida stands up, the legs of his chair scraping loudly against the tile floor, and makes his way around her. He puts his large hands on her shoulders and _squeezes_ — and that's _definitely_ not something she's ever seen a teacher do before. "There's a counselor affiliated with the school," he says as his thumbs press circles into her back. "I really do think it would be a good idea to talk to her." He squeezes just a bit too hard, and Akari hikes up her shoulders ever so slightly. "There was one student whose parents went through a _nasty_ divorce. We told him it would be a good idea to talk to her, but he wouldn't have any of it. Now…" He chuckles, and removes one of his hands. "Well… that's another story."

He… shouldn't be talking to her about another student like this. Maybe, he'd tell her story to someone else — every last bit of it, even the part that Kawakami swore would be kept secret. She turns around, and—

—she really, really shouldn't have looked. She shouldn't have looked, because then she wouldn't have had to see a teacher she should have been able to trust with one hand down his track pants. There's really only one reason for his hand to be there, and it makes her blood run cold.

("Wow, that transfer student's _really_ buddy-buddy with Mr. Kamoshida, isn't she?" Akari had overheard a student whispering in the halls some time ago. "I thought Takamaki was his girl!"

"Maybe they have one of _those_ kinds of relationships," another said. "Gross, don't you think?"

"White trash and… someone from the boonies?" a third asked, confused. "That doesn't even make any sense! That transfer student isn't even that hot! Takamaki, though…")

Everything falls into place with sickening clarity: Kamoshida was never truly _nice_ to her — not in the way she wanted him, and every other teacher in the school, to be. Every compliment, ever gesture of goodwill and support, was all to achieve one and, and that end was Akari herself — just like it had been Ann before, or maybe still was.

Akari clamors out of the seat, springing away from Kamoshida and maybe, reflexively, slapping away the hand that's still on her shoulder. In an instant, all of the kindness and sympathy he'd been so generous with is gone, as he slowly draws his hand out into the open. The skin under her uniform, where he'd touched her shoulders, tingles. She presses a shaking hand to her mouth and wills herself not to scream.

"What's the problem?" Kamoshida asks. The answer should be _nothing_ — and yet she was very much not hallucinating when she saw what he was doing, where his hand was.

"Y-You're a _teacher_ …" she whispers. It comes out muffled, through the hand over her mouth.

Kamoshida gives her a crooked smile, and tilts his head to the side. "Well… yeah. That's the idea."

 _Teachers shouldn't do things like that_ , she wants to say, but the words won't come out. _I trusted you_ would make for a decent alternative, but it would be a lie because she can't recall a single moment in her five days of knowing him when she ever completely trusted him.

"Hey…" Kamoshida says, stepping towards her with that same lopsided grin. He lays his hand on her shoulder again, and it _burns_.

"Don't touch me!" She slaps his hand away again, and this, at least, is intentional.

Kamoshida flinches, and looks down at his hand. In an instant, all gentleness is gone from his expression. "You little _bitch_."

Akari takes one step towards the door. Kamoshida glowers at her, but does not try to close the distance between them. She really shouldn't have come here; she really shouldn't have let him bring her here.

Akari runs, even though Kamoshida is bigger and faster and will probably catch her anyway. It's useless — he'll catch her, and she'll have to go to juvie hall for doing this to a teacher — even if twas the teacher's _fault_ —

—she doesn't look back, and she doesn't stop running until the train doors have slid shut behind her. This should be a victory in and of itself: this is the first time since she came to Tokyo that she hasn't been afraid, when getting on the train. And yet, the truth is that whatever Kamoshida was trying to do to her is a hundred times worse than what the train has already done.

Akari sinks into an empty seat, hugging her bag to her chest and curling into herself, and waits listlessly for her station.

* * *

(Moments later, Kamoshida calls Yuuki Mishima into his office. "Sit down," he says with a scowl on his face, and has to resist the urge to snap at him when he takes too long.

That's right — Mishima had been friendly with Suzui, hadn't he? Of course he'd be shaken up — but nationals will not wait for them, nor will the school, and it's only a matter of time until Suzui _talks_.

"Tell me," says Kamoshida. "You're in the same class as the new transfer student, right? What do you think of her?"

"Kurusu-san…?" Mishima asks so slowly and listlessly, Kamoshida has to resist the urge to smash his face in. "She's… nice, I guess. I don't know her that well. Why?"

Kamoshida smiles, and ignores the way Mishima doesn't bother to hide his shudder. "Oh, you'll _never_ guess what I heard about her.)


End file.
